Straight tracks lock

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PeterH P
PeterH Jan 8, 2006 16:13:42
Replying to moss

I agree and am currently engaged in a prolonged in depth study of waymarks, trade routes and boundaries. Often particularly difficult for two reasons:

1 The Romans "improved" and developed earlier trackways and too much emphasis is placed upon routes as being virgin Roman inventions. Look beyond and before.

2 New age mumbo-jumbo and earth energy fantasy means that few serious writers look at prehistoric tracks and non astronomical alignments seriously.

The key is found by trying to understand the geography - not the cosmology or religion. Landscape is key. Look at the landforms, the valleys, the wet places, the heavily wooded ground, the fording places. These were the factors that determined communication and trade. That leads us on to understand why straight lines were sought and routes marked. Perfectly reasonable then to see barrows and ritual places associated with routes of passage as well as rites of passage.

C cropredy
cropredy Jan 8, 2006 17:35:06
Replying to PeterH

Moss, I am glad I made you think this out.
All of you on here make me think things out.
If we have a variety of views, then debate can follow.
I appreciate the sceptic most, some nights I cant sleep, going over what has been said , about many things you all talk of, not just the hard to believe stuff I put.
I have just been out looking for a suitable spot to mark out a straight line, not the best of days.
One of the strange things that I note, when looking along my rods ( I have mastered the art of leaning over without gravity swinging them about ) a little like looking along a gun barrel, is how often I can see a dip in the horizon, or a hill top, many times it will be the biggest tree, that the rod is looking directly at.
The biggest problem I have with the trade route thoughts , is when ever I come to a river etc, sploosh.
Over on the portal, it has been proposed that a meeting be organised, somewhere, if this can be arranged, I think a good discussion and a better understanding of each other could be achieved.
K.

S sam
sam Jan 8, 2006 20:32:38
Replying to PeterH

I totally agree with you - I have always thought that the romans just imporoved and adapted the trackway system that was already there. We are still carrying on this process now - if we build a motorway (say, the A1M at the devils arrows) than we follow the existing route, but build bigger.

And if you were building a monument, then you'd build it where people would see it, from the road. I've just been looking at the map for penmaenmawr - burial chambers, standing stones, circles - all next to an old trackway from the axe factory. This trackway then became a roman road, with a roman fort below it.

http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=274000&Y=372000&width=700&height=400&gride=272138.935638447&gridn=376183.294316003&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&keepicon=true&zm=0&scale=25000&left.x=5&left.y=144

sam

T tuesday
tuesday Jan 8, 2006 23:45:41
Replying to PeterH

yes peter i agree with you. alan garner's 'the moon of gomrath' - a piece of fiction for children of all ages - has one of the most poetic evocations of this - a 'track' which is in fact a connecting line or route appearing under moonlight at certain times of the year. in a way although such an idea is not proveable in terms of actual astronomical or cartographic alignment, it has a symbolic rightness to it which is convincing.

Paul Devereux's writing on the cursus and various landscape lines discusses the subject too doesn't it? i can feel the establishment of geometry as a first move toward distinguishing one's culture and life from the chaos and entropy of nature.

i have never doused but it has a romantic appeal for the same reason - and it doesn't need to be scientifically proveable for me to see its poetic value.

and, despite the wonderful mass of incredible information and opinion that we have, the romance of that subjective sense of connection still remains the most important thing...

C cropredy
cropredy Jan 9, 2006 01:14:18
Replying to PeterH

PeterH, you are perfectly correct about the geography etc, determining the routes, that is totally common sense.
But from my point of view, the problem I have, and I will prove beyond all reasonable doubt, is that the long barrows, old crosses and stone circles are to an inch , on a line, I have driven myself silly, trying to find one that isnt.
Funnily enough the round barrows, dont quite match this, they are often just to the side of the line, they represent W.I.P to me, I will puzzle out why, perhaps they didnt know the lines, or perhaps the lines moved, because of some planetry alignments, I dont know.
Kevin

M moss
moss Jan 9, 2006 08:02:01
Replying to PeterH

forgot to add this link, which might be of interest... its about prehistory and churches.
http://www.shef.ac.uk/assem/issue6/Corcos_web.html